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The CGIL reiterates its opposition to the idea of using severance pay to allow early exit at 64. «A proposal already put forward last year and which for the CGIL is wrong and, when tested by the numbers, downright crazy», states the union.
«It does not really expand the flexibility of the social security system, but it shifts the cost of the advance entirely onto workers, who in order to retire earlier would have to accept a lower allowance for their entire lives and, in some cases, also use their severance pay to reach the required threshold», explains the CGIL in its Collettiva newsletter.
«TFR is deferred salary»
“We are faced with yet another wrong proposal, which tries to present as a new opportunity what is actually financed entirely by workers,” says Lara Ghiglione, confederal secretary of the CGIL. «The point to be clarified is very simple: the severance pay belongs to the workers and is deferred wages. They are not government resources and they are not public resources with which to finance a pension reform”, he underlines.
The threshold rose to 1,638.72 euros per month
«The first fact to start from – explains Ezio Cigna, responsible for social security policies of the national CGIL – is how progressively more difficult it has become to reach the economic requirement necessary to retire early in the contributory system».
In 2022, to access retirement at 64, it was necessary to accrue a pension equal to at least 2.8 times the social allowance, 1,310.68 euros per month. In 2026 the ordinary threshold has risen to three times the social allowance, equal to 1,638.72 euros per month. From 2030 the transition to 3.2 times the social allowance is expected and, in the simulation carried out by the CGIL Observatory, the threshold is estimated at 1,818.94 euros per month.
«It means – underlines Cigna – that between 2022 and 2026 the bar has risen by approximately 328 euros per month. To reach this figure, an additional contribution amount of 83,851 euros would be needed, which is equivalent to an increased salary of almost 254,000 euros. In 2030, according to our simulation, the threshold rises to 508 euros and the additional amount needed would rise to 129,863 euros which is equivalent to an increased salary of almost 394,000 euros”.
«And it is here – underlines Cigna – that the absurdity of the proposal emerges: first the threshold that workers must reach in order to retire is raised and then they are proposed to use their severance pay to overcome that same barrier».
Comparison with real wages
To “concretely” verify the feasibility of the proposal, the CGIL Social Security Observatory took as a reference the latest average annual salary communicated by the INPS for 2024 for workers in the private sector, excluding the agricultural sector and domestic work – domestic workers and carers – equal to 24,486 euros gross per year. In any case, the average value “hides” a strong gender difference: the average annual salary of men is equal to 27,967 euros, while that of women stops at 19,833 euros.
«It is with these salaries – observes Cigna – that we must compare any social security proposal. We cannot build simulations thinking about perfectly continuous careers and high salaries, when the reality of our labor market gives us an average salary of just over 24 thousand euros.”
The simulations show, in fact, that the use of severance pay “does not solve the problem for the workers who would most need to be able to retire early”. With an annual salary of 30 thousand euros and 30 years of contributions, for example, the simulated pension at 64 years of age is around 1,110 euros per month, very far from the 1,638.72 euros required in 2026. Even adding the estimated TFR, the overall amount would remain “insufficient” to reach the threshold, warns the CGIL.
The recalculation of contributions and the 10.6% cut
The possible possibility of accessing retirement at 64 “would be accompanied by the recalculation of the entire pension with the contributory system”. The CGIL underlines this in its Collettiva newsletter.
The union’s simulations show that with 40 years of contributions and an annual salary of 35 thousand euros, the pension calculated with the mixed system would be around 1,726 euros per month; with the recalculation of contributions it would drop to around 1,543 euros: over 182 euros less each month, “equal to a reduction of 10.6%”. With a salary of 50 thousand euros the loss would rise to 261 euros per month, and with 70 thousand euros to over 365 euros per month.